


All The Worlds and Universes

by giidas (KatushkaK)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 05:18:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5615308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatushkaK/pseuds/giidas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn wakes up in a bed in medical, alone. Finn wakes up in a bed in a room full of sunlight, with Poe. Finn wakes up in his bunk, alone. Finn wakes up in a bed because he hears crying, and there is also Poe. Finn wakes up...</p>
<p>He's starting to see a pattern here.</p>
<p>Or, where Finn travels to different universes, different versions of his life, and Poe is the only constant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Worlds and Universes

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Taxonomy of Universes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2207451) by [7iris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/7iris/pseuds/7iris). 



> So, I saw Star Wars and it was so rad I had to see it again!
> 
> This is a fic inspired by a wonderful wonderful story, A Taxonomy of Universes, that has destroyed me every single time i have re-read it and I thought - the PoeFinn ship needs a story like this. I doubt my story will be half as good as the original, but I do hope it will bring you some joy!
> 
> This has not been beta'd, and thanks go to my 'Star Wars Tea' group over on twitter who made me do this, basically.

Finn wakes up to steady beeping in the background and the chemical smell of antiseptic. It takes him a while and a surprising amount of effort to open his eyes, but when he does, the room is empty.

Just as he expected.

His heart stutters anyway, thinking about Rey and if she made it, but remembering her fierce face, her determination, her fighting skills? He’s pretty sure she’s fine. Poe, too. He _is_ the best pilot of the Resistance and he _has_ survived his own death at least once since Finn’s known him.

They’re both fine, he’s pretty confident about that.

Doesn’t change the fact that he wakes up alone in a room he’s never seen before with no one there to confirm that for him. 

He looks around for a button to call a nurse but there’s? Nothing? Is he supposed to shout? He’s _not_ shouting. Trying to get up was definitely not a good idea, his back screams at him when his abdominals flex to get him of the bed. He lets himself fall back down, _gently_ , and rolls on his side. Getting an elbow under himself, he pushes his body up with the strength in his arm so as not to use any of his back muscles. Or, well, a limited amount of them only.

He sees stars when he sits up and gathers that he must’ve spent a long ass time lying down, probably. 

Shame no one is kirffin here to tell him anything.

His feet are bare, of course, and he can’t see a pair of slippers or shoes anywhere in the room. Sighing, Finn starts to stand up.

And his legs don’t buckle, he thinks: victory!

Up until they do buckle three seconds later and Finn falls on his face - thank god it wasn’t his ass, he doesn’t even want to know how much that would’ve hurt his back - the monitors beeping frantically as his heart rate spikes.

Finn’s taking deep breaths and is trying to get himself up again when a nurse runs into his room, all wide eyes and frantic energy.

“Finn! What the kriff?” she exclaims as she rushes to his side, steadying him and pushing him back towards the bed, “you can’t be getting up! Your back is nowhere near close to being healed enough for this, lie back down, boy!”

Finn listens to her, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed and remembering how his back hurt when he tried to get up before, so he does the side thing again and the nurse praises him for it. He closes his eyes, takes a couple of deep breaths and opens them again.

She comes to check on the monitors, nodding to herself and turns to Finn.

“It’s good to finally see your eyes open, Finn,” she says with a smile. “You’ve been in a medically induced coma for a couple of weeks. We needed to keep you under, give your body the chance to heal in peace. When we tried to wake you from it… You just. You wouldn’t. Your body did not react to the medicine in the way we expected and you kept sleeping,” she sighs here, not looking at Finn, her hands grabbing at her stethoscope.

Finn breaths, gets ready for the bad news he’s sure is coming.

“You’ve been asleep for close to 15 weeks now, Finn,” her voice is gentle, but Finn still feels it like punch to the chest. She pats his shoulder, keeps her hand there as Finn tries not to hyperventilate.

“15 weeks!” he manages to exclaim between his panting breaths, “ _kriff._ ”

That’s almost four months. _Four months_. 

“Are Rey and Poe- are they…” he doesn’t even know what he’s asking.

“I‘m sure they’re fine. My clearance is not high enough to know how they’re doing or where they are right now, but I would’ve heard if they…” she pauses, not saying ‘if they died’ but Finn can fill in the pause himself just fine.

“I’m sure they’re okay,” she reassures. “Let me go get a doctor who’ll explain the procedures you underwent and what are the next steps to finally getting you out of here,” she smiles kindly and winks, turning to leave the room.

“Could you also… Could you see if the General is on the base?” he’s not even sure if that’s something he _can_ ask, to speak to the General, but she is the only other person beside Rey and Poe that Finn actually knows here. And who might tell him something about Rey and Poe.

“I’ll see what I can do,” the nurse replies and leaves.

And Finn is alone.

 

~~~

 

Turns out his back will be fine - well, turns out he was very lucky, insert unbelievable amounts of medical mumbo jumbo, future physio and whatnot which all boil down to - his back will be fine, with time and proper exercise.

He does get to talk to the General, who thanks him profusely for his help and efforts, tells him Rey is just fine, training with Luke Skywalker of all people, but that she does not know when Rey might return. She has no news about Poe, who left on a mission three weeks ago. A secret mission, it looks like. A secret dangerous mission during which he cannot communicate with the base.

Finn tries not to puke when he hears that news. He doesn’t know why it hits him so hard. Poe is a pilot, it’s his job. It’s to be expected that he’ll be on dangerous missions. Poe is okay. Poe will be just fine and he will return in another three weeks' time when the mission has been scheduled to end.

And so Finn is released. He gets a talk from the doctor and the nurse as well, about what he can and can’t do, how to exercise and to come back and see them if anything is out of the ordinary. They schedule a check up, too, in four weeks. He has the vague idea that maybe Poe could come with him if he’s back by then but then shakes his head at himself. Why would Poe want to. 

Finn has no quarters of his own, of course, so the General pulls some strings and gets Finn to room with Poe, whose room is big enough for two. When Finn asks if she’s sure Poe will not mind, she just smiles and shakes her head a little bit. Finn doesn’t ask any more questions because he feels like he’s missing something and that the General will most definitely _not_ tell him what that something is.

 

~~~

 

The room is nice. 

Well, it’s a military base so ‘nice' might be a strong word but after the communal quarters for 12 or more on the _Finalizer_ , this is indeed that. _Nice_. A room for two, with two bunks and an attached fresher. With no windows, this _is_ a military base and security was the focus when it was being built, he imagines.

There’re things all over the place, clothes and souvenirs and spare parts. There are pictures of Poe with what Finn guesses is his family, some books and holoreaders and other assorted knick knacks.

Finn tries not to disrupt the chaos too much. He has no possessions, no knock knacks or souvenirs or photos, the only thing he has to his name- and he has a name now, at least there’s that, he keeps telling himself - is the jacket Poe gave him. The jacket that was thrown over the back of the chair in Finn’s hospital room, the one that should’ve had a slash through its back but seems to have been expertly repaired and returned to him.

 

~~~

 

The first night Finn sleeps on his own in Poe’s room is uneventful. He has some vague recollection of maybe having a nightmare or two, but feels rested enough. He does his exercises in the morning and then goes to the mess for breakfast.

He sits alone. 

The General assigned him to the Armoury for a couple of hours a day, so Finn goes there after breakfast and gets assigned a post, helps with repairing the assortment of guns and blasters that need it.

He doesn’t talk to anyone and no one tries to talk to him.

Lunch is the same lone affair but he gets the afternoon free and goes for a walk around the base, finds a stream nearby and sits under a tree, listening to the leaves whispering in the wind and the water splashing as it runs down the small hill.

When he gets back, he picks up his ration in the mess and takes it to Poe’s room, picks up one of the holoreaders and reads.

He gets so into it that his food gets cold and it’s suddenly very late.

Not looking at his scar when he’s in the fresher is not easy, mostly because of his morbid curiosity, but he manages anyway. (He took a look at it before he was discharged and. He doesn’t need to see it again, how broken he is.)

He goes to sleep in the bunk next to Poe’s.

 

~~~

 

Finn is woken up by light and warmth on his face. His back is very warm too, and there’s - someone is -

He’s out of the bed before he knows it, his heart hammering in his chest.

This is not the base. This room has a big, and he means _big,_ window, floor to ceiling big kind of big.

And Poe.

Poe is in the bed.

Poe with crazy hair, grumpy morning Poe who’s making grumpy noises and reaching a hand towards where Finn is.

“The hell, Finn? S’too early, come back t’bed.”

Finn freezes.

Then he just as quickly un-freezes.

This has to be a dream, right, he thinks. There is no other explanation. He's dreaming.

He pinches his thigh, pinches it pretty hard, so hard he makes a little noise actually, but doesn’t wake up.

The noise makes Poe finally open his eyes and look at Finn, eyebrows raised.

“Babe, what is it?”

Babe? Babe? Is _he_ babe? There’s something gleaming on Poe’s finger, some kind of a ring, he thinks.

When Finn looks down, there’s a gleaming ring on his finger too.

He has no idea what that means but Poe is calling him babe.

The best pilot, well, in the galaxy, probably, the charming funny Poe is calling _Finn_ a babe.

“Uhmmm,” he says, very intelligently.

Poe sits up, the sheet falls down to his lap and he’s not. No shirt. Okay. Finn can do this.

“Another nightmare, Finn?” Poe asks, voice soft, eyes gentle. And Finn thinks, oh to kriff with it, he _doesn't_ think.

“Yeah, nightmare, yes, _yes_ , a nightmare” Kylo Ren and waking up alone and all that, he’d call it a nightmare, he’s not even lying is he.

Poe gets up, and thank Force he’s wearing underwear at least, and grabs Finn's hand, puts in on his back, gets his arms around Finn’s shoulders, one of his hands on the back of Finn’s neck. Poe presses himself as close as he can get and Finn can’t breath. And then Poe starts humming and slowly moving them both, gently rocking their hips from side to side.

Finn’s arms wrap around Poe of their own accord, making him step even closer, and Finn buries his face in Poe’s hair, in his neck.

“Finn,” Poe breaths, running his fingers up and down Finn’s back, still clutching at the back of his neck, “I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere, it’s gonna be fine, babe.”

Finn can feel the moisture gathering in his eyes and tries to fight it. He’s not overly successful.

Poe kisses his neck, his cheeks, his lips. Butterfly kisses that have Finn’s heart racing, his fingers gripping at Poe’s back.

“Let’s go back to bed and get some more sleep, hm?” Poe suggests quietly, searching Finn’s face for something. Finn’s not sure he finds it.

“Yeah, I… Yes, Poe,” he doesn’t want to go back to sleep, doesn’t ever want to wake up from this but the bed looks very inviting.

They lie down and Poe plasters himself all over Finn’s back, hugging him close, one of his arms under Finn’s head, the other draped over his waist, hand on Finn's heart.

“I’m right here, Finn. And I’ll be right here when you wake up, too, yeah?”

“Promise?” his mouth betrays him.

“Of course, of course I promise,” Poe replies, fierce, clutching Finn even closer to himself.

Finn really wants to believe him.

 

~~~

 

He wakes up to the artificial morning light of the barracks and has to choke back a sob. He’s alone in his bunk. 

A dream. Finn can deal with that.

He does his exercises, has breakfast alone, goes to the Armoury, has lunch alone, goes for a walk, grabs dinner to eat in Poe’s room. Reads.

And goes to sleep hoping for another dream like yesterday.

 

~~~

 

He wakes up to crying and groaning.

The groaning is Poe, who’s being woken up by the crying as well.

The crying is…

“Finn, ugh, can you go get her? I got up to feed her like, three times tonight. Please,” Poe’s voice is muffled by the pillow but Finn manages to get the message.

Get up and go get. Someone.

So he does. He gets up and follows the sound of crying to the next room where he finds… A baby. A little girl crying her heart out, standing up in her crib, holding the bars for support.

She has Poe’s hair, dark curly tendrils like a halo around her tiny head. Finn’s heart melts.

He has no clue what to do with a baby though. He should pick her up but -

He finds his hands know what to do when he gets close enough, his body seemingly on autopilot as he picks the baby girl up and cradles her to his chest. She keeps crying, although it’s quieting down now. One of her tiny fists grabs at the collar of his sleep shirt and keeps holding on.

Finn finds himself humming a song, moving around the room to quiet the baby down. To his own amazement, it seems to be working and she’s soon back asleep.

There's a chair in the corner of the room and he goes to sit down on it, baby still in his arms. She’s beautiful, her jet black eyelashes fanning her cheeks, her little face so very much like Poe’s. Finn never wants to let her go. He sits down more comfortably and before he knows it, he’s asleep again.

 

~~~

 

He wakes up in his bunk. He’s starting to see a pattern here, but since it only happened twice so far, he doesn’t want to form any theories without further evidence, so to say.

Finn goes about his day as he usually would, not even feeling the loneliness since he’s pretty used to being ostracized.

Poe should be back in two and a half weeks if the mission goes well.

 

~~~

 

This time, when he wakes up, he’s in a ship he thinks, Poe sitting right next to him, smiling. 

“Hey sleepyhead, we’re almost there,” he says, squeezing Finn’s hand.

“Hmm?” it’s only been two times so far but Finn is learning that saying less is better, okay. Leading questions and all that.

“Almost in Hanna, your parents sent a note that they’ll be waiting when we land,” he adds, like it’s nothing, turning to look at the projection of their travel path.

Finn nearly chokes on his own spit.

“Parents,” he says, voice almost breaking.

“I know, i know you said you wanted to surprise them but your mom holo’d yesterday when you were out and you know how she is,” Poe says, looking at Finn through his lashes, eyes pleading with him to not be mad.

Finn has no idea what his mom is like. But thanks to these sleep adventures he might just be able to find out.

He squeezes Poe’s hand, tries to smile, and lies through his teeth, “I know.”

 

~~~

 

He wakes up in his bunk, alone again.

He’s met his mom. And his dad. And his sister. And her husband and their three kids.

He doesn’t think these are dreams. They are way too real when he’s in them. He tried all the techniques to wake himself up too, he even cut his thumb while cutting the vegetables for dinner at his parents’ house. _At his parents’ house_. 

The only way he can ever get out seems to be to go back to sleep in the ‘dream'.

Which is why he fought sleep so much yesterday. Can he call it yesterday? He ended up dozing off on his mom’s sofa, feet in Poe’s lap, his arm stretched towards the armchair where his mom sat, drinking her wine and holding her adult son’s hand.

Finn thinks maybe he should tell the doctor, maybe this is some side effect of all the medicine… But then he reconsiders. He doesn’t have anyone on the base right now, beside the General who is busy enough without having to worry about Finn all the time, and he’s scared the doctor would not believe him or outright call him crazy.

So he keeps going about his day as he has before. And going to sleep full of hope of seeing Poe. And Rey. And maybe his parents again.

 

~~~

 

He’s woken up by a sound too familiar, too hated for this to be a good ‘dream’.

He’s on the _Finalizer_ again.

Kriff.

Finn really really really wants to go back to sleep but that’s impossible when the alarms are blaring. And he thinks he knows what this is, thinks he recognizes exactly what day this might be. He didn’t think he was travelling in time but maybe?

He gets up, puts on the hated white armour and gets ready for the battle. His first battle.

It does not go as expected. 

He sees Poe, sees him in the X-Wing, sees BB-8 being loaded in it and then… It blows up.

Finn can’t breath. 

This isn’t right. This is not how it went. Stormtroopers can’t aim for kriff, they should not have been able to destroy the X-Wing.

This is not happening Poe did not just die and BB-8 has not just been destroyed. The hope of the Resistance did not just crumble before his eyes.

He realizes he’s not breathing properly, that Phasma is screaming at him to shoot, and then there's only black.

 

~~~

 

He wakes up alone, in his bunk, shaking like a leaf, his sleep shirt wet from sweat. He wants to run to the General and ask her if Poe’s alright, if he maybe managed to send a transmission or something. 

He knows what she’d say, though, so he doesn’t.

He goes about his day but doesn’t go to sleep full of hope this time. He’s learned his lesson.

 

~~~

 

It continues on like this for another two weeks, Finn travelling in his dreams. Sometimes it's a quick visit, like the first one was, sometimes he stays in the other universe for a day.

There are days when he hates it, like that one time he awoke next to a hospital bed which had Poe lying it in, motionless, very pale. He was holding Poe’s hand and the monitors were beeping in the background, their pace very slow.

It made Finn sick to his stomach so fast he had to run to the fresher.

When he came back to the room, Poe’s eyes were open, barely, but still.

“Hey, babe,” he croaked, and coughed a couple of times, his hand coming away bloody. Finn’s heart constricted, his stomach in knots.

“Poe,” he sobbed out, running to the bed, burying his face in Poe’s side, clutching at his hand.

“Oh Finn, please don’t cry, please,” his voice was weak, and the hand that fought its way out of Finn’s hold even more so, but Finn let it go. It was immediately on his head, fingers in his hair, soothing him.

“You know the doctors said there’s still a chance, and I won’t leave you without a fight, I promise, I promise you,” Poe whispered, making Finn look at him. His eyes were shining with tears too. Finn could only nod, wipe his eyes with his sleeve and tell Poe to go back to sleep.

Never had he wanted to fall asleep as much as he did in that moment.

 

~~~

 

He gets to see Rey, too, sometimes. 

One time, he woke up to the three of them on a freighter, smuggling guns for the Resistance. They even had a BB-8, although it was, very disconcertingly, green instead of orange.

But he’s mostly starting to see a pattern to the visits that has nothing to do with Rey.

 

~~~

 

He wakes up to Poe kissing his shoulder, rubbing his erection against Finn’s backside, his hand travelling down Finn’s stomach.

He jerks away, surprised, and Poe notices immediately.

“You’re not my Finn, are you?” he asks, and he doesn’t even look surprised, “This hasn’t happened in a while, huh.”

Finn just stares at him. What hasn’t happened in a while?

“What hasn’t happened in a while?”

“You. Travelling like this,” Poe replies, like Finn should know what the kriffin Force he’s on about.

“Travelling,” Finn feels a little dumb just repeating stuff like this but. What can you do.

“You don’t know. Well that’s certainly a first,” Poe says, kind of to himself, scratching his chest. “It used to happen a lot, well not _a lot_ a lot, but sometimes. You told me, or well, my you told me that he used to wake up in other worlds, other universes, where he was with me for a long time, or where he maybe didn’t know me at all, where he wasn’t a Pilot but I was, can you imagine,” and he chuckles as he says it. Finn’s brain is stuck on the universes thing, so it takes him a while to react to that.

“Me? A Pilot? Wait and you’re _not_ a pilot here?” Finn says, completely astounded.

“So you're one of _those_ , okay,” he smiles at Finn, shakes his head, “you can come sit down, I promise i won’t fondle you again,” and pats the bed next to him, trying unsuccessfully to not smile.

Finn goes for lack of anything better to do.

“So, you were saying, about the universes,” Finn waves his hand in a ‘go on’ motion and Poe’s eyes go soft and warm.

“Yes. My you used to travel. At first he thought they were just dreams but then he talked to Rey about it-“

“Rey? Rey is here too? Can I talk to her?” Finn jumps in, frantic.

“Finn, calm down, yes, she’s in this universe too and she’s okay but she lives on another planet and I don’t think she would appreciate us waking her up, what with the baby and all,” Poe replies.

“A _baby_?” Finn exclaims.

“Oh Force, this will take a while,” Poe sighs, getting up.

“Wait wait where are you going don’t leave-“ Finn grabs Poe’s hand, stopping him.

Poe turns around, twines their fingers together and squeezes Finn’s hand, “I’ll just make us some tea, you can come with me, babe - uh, sorry. Finn. You can come with me, Finn.” 

He’s blushing a little bit, but doesn’t let go of Finn’s hand.

Finn thinks maybe he shouldn’t, but, “I don’t mind the,” he waves his free hand in an all encompassing motion, “babe. I don’t mind it. You always call me that, in all the other universes where I’ve met you,” and it’s true. Poe, apart from that one horrible universe with the X-Wing blowing up, has always been a constant, always by Finn’s side, holding Finn’s hand, calling him ‘babe' or ‘Finn' but with such softness in his eyes that he could as well have been calling him ‘love’.

Poe chuckles. ”My Finn told me that, too. I guess I'm a sap no matter where the sleep travelling takes you,” and he shakes his head at himself.

You could say that, Finn thinks.

Poe makes tea and tells him all that his Finn told him about the travelling.

“He thinks the universe was trying to tell him something,” and he rolls his eyes at that and laughs, “Gods, you should’ve seen my reaction the first time he told me about it. And the the first time i woke up to Not My Finn, in my bed no less,” his eyes grow big and he shakes his head, still can’t seem to fight the smile from his lips though.

“Anyway. He never told me what the universe was trying to tell him, or many particulars about his travels, so I’m afraid you’ll have to figure that out for yourself,” he sips his tea, his face looking a bit sad at not being able to help Finn out more.

He considers Finn for a moment and adds, “I could tell you what Rey told him, but I don’t think it’s my place, sorry for that.”

Finn nods, cradling the mug between his fingers to warm them and looks around the room. There are pictures everywhere, of him and Poe together looking happy. Of the other him.

It makes him feel more alone than ever. These are not his worlds, not his universes. He’s a stranger here, filling up a spot for the real him that belongs here. He feels like crying.

Poe clears his throat, “Unless you want to be a pilot for the day or call in sick, we should go back upstairs and try and get you back to sleep.”

Finn agrees. Being a pilot for the day sounds awesome but since this is actually a real world, he wouldn’t want to put the other Finn’s career in jeopardy, what with him not actually knowing anything about piloting.

“Okay, good idea,” he nods and finishes his tea, puts the mug in the wash.

He tries not to look at the pictures in the hallway but fails.

 

Finn lies down on what he thinks is his side of the bed and Poe just stands around awkwardly, not getting in. Finn raises his eyebrows at him, motioning at the other side of the bed.

“You don’t mind?” he asks, hesitant.

Finn rolls his eyes, “This is your house, your bed, of course I don’t mind you sleeping in here.”

Poe rolls his eyes at him too, laughs, “Sure, but I’m basically a stranger to you, didn’t want to assume.”

He does get in the bed, finally, and Finn suddenly feels wide awake. Poe starts softly snoring in a couple of minutes thought, moving in the big bed closer to Finn.

Finn turns around to get a better look at him and is hit with so much tenderness for Poe it makes it hard to breathe. Poe's face is slack, one half of it hidden by the pillow, his hair is all over the place and he’s lying on his side all economy like, as if he was used to small bunks, taking up as little space as he can. Finn moves closer and wraps him up in a hug, he can’t help himself.

Poe wakes up a bit, moving even closer, burying his face in Finn’s collarbone and murmurs, “Mmm, back a'ready.”

Finn just hums, waiting for what’ll come next.

“Missed you, babe,” and it’s all soft and half unintelligible, “he wasn’t a pilot. How’ll he gimme his pilot jacket in his universe if’s not a pilot, mmm.”

Finn’s heart stops and he squeezes this sleepy Poe, feeling like he should reassure him somehow.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll figure something out,” is what he settles on, and it must be enough, because Poe just humms and buries even closer to Finn.

 

~~~

 

Waking up from that one does nothing to alleviate the feeling of loneliness he’s been carrying around for weeks now. Well, to be honest with himself, he’s been feeling like that ever since he can remember, but the small reprieve of time when he had Poe and Rey and Han and Chewbacca and even BB-8 made him forget.

Made him forget that he was always alone and will probably always be.

The Poes in the other universes, they always seem to love their Finns. And Finn knows what love is, okay, that is thankfully not something the order managed to program out of him even though they tried kriffin hard. He remembers, in flashes, his mom looking at his dad, her eyes so soft, even as she was teasing him. His dad kissing her cheek, her mouth, before she left. He remembers her cries when the First Order officer came to claim him, the first born, and how she repeated, how she whispered in his ear, how much she loved him and that she’ll never forget him, and for him to never forget her love. He doesn’t remember his name, but he does remember that.

He knows what love is and that, if it wasn’t for the First Order, he could’ve grown up feeling it all around himself.

Instead he grew up on a huge ship with thousands of other boys, all of them competing against each other, their lives made impersonal by the white armour, by the designations instead of names.

So he goes about his day. 

He does his exercises, has breakfast alone, goes to the Armoury, has lunch alone, goes for a walk, grabs dinner to eat in Poe’s room. Reads.

He stops counting the days till Poe’s planned return. Stops counting the days till he might get to see Rey.

Every time he dream travels now, and wakes up next to a Poe that’s not his own, he turns on his other side and forces himself back to sleep.

He doesn’t think he could stomach not being alone and having it all taken away, night after night. Or, he realizes, he might only live for the nights when he gets to travel to a not-his Poe, which might be even more depressing. Wasting his life away to steal a day with Poe that’s not his own. 

 

~~~

 

He’s woken up by the door to his room being opened, by someone hushing the others in the hallway, by a warm hand on his shoulder, not shaking him, just there, by whispers of “Finn, Finn, you awake, buddy?”

He doesn’t dare move, keeps his eyes closed, wills himself back to sleep, thinks this must be one of the cruelest dream travels yet.

 

~~~

 

He wakes up for what he thinks of as ‘for real’ this time to-

Find the other bunk in the room occupied.

There’s a ghastly orange pilot’s suit thrown in the corner, boots by the bed, gloves thrown on the table.

Did he not manage to fall asleep properly before, is he still travelling? His heart is beating too fast and his back aches when he gets up.

This is real, he thinks, his back never aches in the other universes.

“Gods, this is real,” he says, out loud, touching the gloves on the table. He hears distant beeping and runs for the door, in only his sleep pants, throws it open to find BB-8 slowly rolling towards him.

“BB!” he shouts, “oh my god BB you’re back!” he feels like jumping up and down but instead crouches down and hugs BB, to the droids increasingly panicked bee-booping.

“I’m so glad to see you, BB, you don’t even know,” Finn lets the poor droid go, watches it roll past him and to the open door, which has Poe standing in it, looking half asleep and half blue-green and bloodied.

“BB gets a hug and I don’t even get a good morning? I see how it is,” he grumbles with a half-smile on his face.

Finn is frozen on the spot, trying to think of something to say, of an explanation, but Poe doesn’t let him.

“Come back inside, please, before someone gets an eyefull, you’re basically naked there,” and Finn realizes he’s right, his sleep pants are these flimsy old shorts he stole from Poe. He looks down at himself and blushes a little, looking back up only to find Poe giving him an appreciative once over. Finn raises his eyebrows. Poe shrugs his shoulder, smirks.

Finn gets inside and Poe sends BB-8 back out, saying something about oil baths, closes the door behind the droid.

“I see you made yourself at home,” he says, back turned to Finn as he putters around making them tea.

“The General thought you wouldn’t mind me living here but if-“

“No, no, no of course I don’t mind, Finn. I’m happy you’re here.” He turns around, a mug of tea in each hand and looks a bit lost for a moment. He puts the mugs down on the table, runs his hands down the front of his tshirt.

“I wanted to be there when you woke up, did they tell you,” he’s looking at the bunk behind Finn like it holds all the secrets in the universe.

“No, no one really told me much,” says Finn, quietly, feeling very naked in Poe’s shorts.

“Spent most of my free time by your bed, hoping you’d open your eyes when I was there,” he clears his throat, looks at Finn, “I hated to leave you. I almost pleaded the General to not send me out on that mission, but we’re so short on pilots…” he shakes his head.

“Anyway, I’m glad you woke up. Sorry I couldn’t be there for you,” his eyes are sincere, they’re the gentle soft things he’s seen on all the other Poes in all the other universes, and Finn’s heart breaks and is put back together in the next breath, bigger, stronger, filling his chest fit to burst.

“But you were,” he rushes out to say, “you were right here and I didn’t even realize it,” Finn says, fingers tapping his chest where his heart beats, big and strong.

Poe’s eyes are wide with hope, his breathing ragged, and then his eyes turn doubtful, “Finn, if you’re pulling my-“

Finn rushes to him, grabs his shoulders, shakes him a little bit, “You’re my Poe. _My_ Poe,” he says, fierce and determined, and he wants to say more but Poe’s face crumbles, and his knees buckle and he’s hugging Finn tight, so tight.

“You’re awake, you're really awake, you’re here,” he keeps mumbling into Finn’s neck, shaking, and Finn is shushing him, hugging him back just as tight, telling him he’ll always be here, always be his Finn.

“You named me, I’m pretty sure that means you’re stuck with me till the end of time, Poe,” Finn says, and it has the desired effect of making Poe chuckle and look up at him.

Poe’s hand is on Finn’s cheek, his thumb gentle on Finn’s cheekbone, and he searches Finn’s face for a bit and then nods, kisses Finn so gently he thinks he’ll fall apart. 

When he draws back, he licks his lips, his thumb running over Fin’s bottom one.

“Till the end of time, you say?” he whispers.

Finn nods.

“I can live with that.”

 

~~~

 

Finn doesn’t travel much, after that. 

Every time he does, he thinks it must be for the other Finn’s benefit, so he tries not to do too much damage in the other worlds, hopes that the other Finn will gather some insight from the way his Poe will look at him, eyes gentle and so fond you could not possibly mistake that look for anything else even if you tried.

And every time he returns, his Poe will sleep-hug him and whisper that he missed him. Finn will squeeze his hand, kiss the ring on it, and shush him back to sleep with lips against his forehand, murmuring his love and promising he'll always return to him.

 

_ Fin _


End file.
